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Tony Roberts (actor)
Encyclopedia
David Anthony "Tony" Roberts (born October 22, 1939) is an American
actor
. He is best known for his roles in several Woody Allen
movies, usually cast as Allen's best friend.
, the son of Norma (née Finkelstein), an animator, and CBS
radio announcer Ken Roberts
. His family was Jewish. He has a sister, Nancy, and is the cousin of late actor Everett Sloane
. Roberts attended Northwestern University
and made his Broadway
debut in 1962, with a role in the play Something About a Soldier
.
. In Annie Hall
, he portrayed Alvy Singer's best friend Rob. Other Allen films and/or plays in which he has appeared include both the Broadway and film versions of Play It Again, Sam
(not actually directed by Allen), Radio Days
, Stardust Memories
, Hannah and Her Sisters
, A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy
and Woody Allen's segment for The Concert for New York City
.
Roberts memorably portrayed the badgering Deputy Mayor Warren LaSalle in The Taking of Pelham One Two Three. He also appeared in the Sidney Lumet
films Serpico
and Just Tell Me What You Want
.
credits include Barefoot in the Park
; How Now, Dow Jones
; Murder at the Howard Johnson's
; Promises, Promises
; Sugar
(the musical version of the movie Some Like It Hot
); The Sisters Rosensweig
; They're Playing Our Song
; Victor/Victoria
; The Tale of the Allergist's Wife
; and Cabaret
. In May 2007, Roberts returned to Broadway in the roller-disco rock musical
Xanadu
.
he has appeared on The Carol Burnett Show
, Matlock
, and Law & Order
. On radio
he was a regular performer on the CBS Radio Mystery Theater
.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
actor
Actor
An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...
. He is best known for his roles in several Woody Allen
Woody Allen
Woody Allen is an American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, jazz musician, author, and playwright. Allen's films draw heavily on literature, sexuality, philosophy, psychology, Jewish identity, and the history of cinema...
movies, usually cast as Allen's best friend.
Early life
Roberts was born in New York CityNew York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, the son of Norma (née Finkelstein), an animator, and CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
radio announcer Ken Roberts
Ken Roberts (announcer)
Ken Roberts was an American radio and television announcer known for his work during the Golden Age of Radio and for his work announcing the daytime television soap operas The Secret Storm, Texas and Love of Life, each for a two-decade span.-Early life and education:Roberts was born on February...
. His family was Jewish. He has a sister, Nancy, and is the cousin of late actor Everett Sloane
Everett Sloane
Everett Sloane was an American stage, film and television actor, songwriter, and theatre director.-Early life:...
. Roberts attended Northwestern University
Northwestern University
Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston and Chicago, Illinois, USA. Northwestern has eleven undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools offering 124 undergraduate degrees and 145 graduate and professional degrees....
and made his Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
debut in 1962, with a role in the play Something About a Soldier
Something About a Soldier
Something About a Soldier, subtitled "A Comedy-drama in Three Acts", was a play written by Emmy-winning writer Ernest Kinoy, which had its Broadway premiere at the Ambassador Theatre in New York on January 4, 1962...
.
Film
Roberts is best known for his collaborations with Woody AllenWoody Allen
Woody Allen is an American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, jazz musician, author, and playwright. Allen's films draw heavily on literature, sexuality, philosophy, psychology, Jewish identity, and the history of cinema...
. In Annie Hall
Annie Hall
Annie Hall is a 1977 American romantic comedy directed by Woody Allen from a screenplay co-written with Marshall Brickman and co-starring Diane Keaton. One of Allen's most popular and most honored films, it won four Academy Awards including Best Picture...
, he portrayed Alvy Singer's best friend Rob. Other Allen films and/or plays in which he has appeared include both the Broadway and film versions of Play It Again, Sam
Play It Again, Sam
Play It Again, Sam is a 1972 film written by and starring Woody Allen, originally entitled Aspirins for Three. The film was directed by Herbert Ross, which is unusual, as Allen usually directs all his own written work....
(not actually directed by Allen), Radio Days
Radio Days
Radio Days is a 1987 comedy film directed by Woody Allen. The film looks back on an American family's life during the Golden Age of Radio using both music and memories to tell the story.-Plot:...
, Stardust Memories
Stardust Memories
Stardust Memories is a 1980 film written and directed by Woody Allen, who considers this to be one of his best films in addition to The Purple Rose of Cairo and Match Point. The film is shot in black-and-white, particularly reminiscent of Federico Fellini's 8½ , which it parodies...
, Hannah and Her Sisters
Hannah and Her Sisters
Hannah and Her Sisters is a 1986 American comedy-drama film which tells the intertwined stories of an extended family over two years that begin and end with a family Thanksgiving dinner...
, A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy
A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy
A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy is a 1982 film written, directed by and starring Woody Allen.The plot is loosely based on Ingmar Bergman's Smiles of a Summer Night. This was the first of 13 movies that Allen would make starring Mia Farrow...
and Woody Allen's segment for The Concert for New York City
The Concert for New York City
The Concert for New York City was a benefit concert, featuring many famous musicians, that took place on October 20, 2001 at Madison Square Garden in New York City in response to the September 11, 2001 attacks...
.
Roberts memorably portrayed the badgering Deputy Mayor Warren LaSalle in The Taking of Pelham One Two Three. He also appeared in the Sidney Lumet
Sidney Lumet
Sidney Lumet was an American director, producer and screenwriter with over 50 films to his credit. He was nominated for the Academy Award as Best Director for 12 Angry Men , Dog Day Afternoon , Network and The Verdict...
films Serpico
Serpico
Serpico is a 1973 American crime film directed by Sidney Lumet. It is based on the true story of New York City policeman Frank Serpico, who went undercover to expose the corruption of his fellow officers, after being pushed to the brink at first by their distrust and later by the threats and...
and Just Tell Me What You Want
Just Tell Me What You Want
Just Tell Me What You Want is a 1980 American comedy film directed by Sidney Lumet. It stars Ali MacGraw, Peter Weller and Alan King, and was also the final film of screen legend Myrna Loy....
.
Theater
Roberts' BroadwayBroadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
credits include Barefoot in the Park
Barefoot in the Park
This article is about the Broadway production. For the film adaptation see Barefoot in the Park .Barefoot in the Park is a romantic comedy by Neil Simon. The original Broadway production, directed by Mike Nichols, opened October 23, 1963, with the four lead roles taken by actors Elizabeth Ashley ,...
; How Now, Dow Jones
How Now, Dow Jones
How Now, Dow Jones is a musical comedy by Academy Award winner Elmer Bernstein, Tony Award nominee Carolyn Leigh and Max Shulman. The original Broadway production opened in December 1967. A critically acclaimed revised version premiered in August 2009....
; Murder at the Howard Johnson's
Murder at the Howard Johnson's
Murder at the Howard Johnson's is a 1979 play in two acts by American playwrights Ron Clark and Sam Bobrick. The production officially opened on Broadway at the John Golden Theatre after 10 preview performances on May 17, 1979; closing just three days later after only 4 more performances. The...
; Promises, Promises
Promises, Promises
Promises, Promises is a musical based on the 1960 film The Apartment. The music is by Burt Bacharach, lyrics by Hal David, and book by Neil Simon. Musical numbers for the original Broadway production were choreographed by Michael Bennett; Robert Moore directed and David Merrick produced...
; Sugar
Sugar (musical)
Sugar is a musical with a book by Peter Stone, music by Jule Styne, and lyrics by Bob Merrill. It is based on the film Some Like It Hot, which was adapted by Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond from a story by Robert Thoeren and Michael Logan...
(the musical version of the movie Some Like It Hot
Some Like It Hot
Some Like It Hot is an American comedy film, made in 1958 and released in 1959, which was directed by Billy Wilder and starred Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon and George Raft. The supporting cast includes Joe E. Brown, Pat O'Brien and Nehemiah Persoff. The film is a remake by Wilder and I....
); The Sisters Rosensweig
The Sisters Rosensweig
The Sisters Rosensweig is a play by Wendy Wasserstein. The play focuses on three Jewish- American sisters and their lives. It "broke theatrical ground by concentrating on a non-traditional cast of three middle-aged women." Wasserstein received the William Inge Award for Distinguished Achievement in...
; They're Playing Our Song
They're Playing Our Song
They're Playing Our Song is a musical with a book by Neil Simon, lyrics by Carole Bayer Sager, and music by Marvin Hamlisch.In a story based on the real-life relationship of Hamlisch and Sager, a wisecracking composer finds a new, offbeat lyricist, but initially the match is not one made in heaven...
; Victor/Victoria
Victor/Victoria (musical)
Victor/Victoria is a musical with a book by Blake Edwards, music by Henry Mancini, lyrics by Leslie Bricusse and additional musical material by Frank Wildhorn...
; The Tale of the Allergist's Wife
The Tale of the Allergist's Wife
The Tale of the Allergist's Wife is a play by Charles Busch.In his first play written for a mainstream audience, Busch explores the Upper West Side milieu of aspiring intellectual and middle-aged upper class matron Marjorie Taub, who lives comfortably with her doctor husband Ira in an expensively...
; and Cabaret
Cabaret (musical)
Cabaret is a musical based on a book written by Christopher Isherwood, music by John Kander and lyrics by Fred Ebb. The 1966 Broadway production became a hit and spawned a 1972 film as well as numerous subsequent productions....
. In May 2007, Roberts returned to Broadway in the roller-disco rock musical
Rock musical
A rock musical is a musical theatre work with rock music. The genre of rock musical may overlap somewhat with album musicals, concept albums and song cycles, as they sometimes tell a story through the rock music, and some album musicals and concept albums become rock musicals...
Xanadu
Xanadu (musical)
Xanadu is a musical comedy with a book by Douglas Carter Beane, music and lyrics by Jeff Lynne and John Farrar, based on the 1980 cult classic film of the same name which was, in turn, inspired by the 1947 Rita Hayworth film Down to Earth. The title is a reference to the poem, Kubla Khan, or A...
.
Television and radio
On televisionTelevision
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
he has appeared on The Carol Burnett Show
The Carol Burnett Show
The Carol Burnett Show is a variety / sketch comedy television show starring Carol Burnett, Harvey Korman, Vicki Lawrence, Lyle Waggoner, and Tim Conway. It originally ran on CBS from September 11, 1967, to March 29, 1978, for 278 episodes and originated from CBS Television City's Studio 33...
, Matlock
Matlock (TV series)
Matlock is an American television legal drama, starring Andy Griffith in the title role of attorney Ben Matlock. The show originally aired from September 23, 1986 to May 8, 1992 on NBC, where it replaced The A-Team, then from November 5, 1992 until May 7, 1995 on ABC.The show's format was similar...
, and Law & Order
Law & Order
Law & Order is an American police procedural and legal drama television series, created by Dick Wolf and part of the Law & Order franchise. It aired on NBC, and in syndication on various cable networks. Law & Order premiered on September 13, 1990, and completed its 20th and final season on May 24,...
. On radio
Radio
Radio is the transmission of signals through free space by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...
he was a regular performer on the CBS Radio Mystery Theater
CBS Radio Mystery Theater
CBS Radio Mystery Theater was a radio drama series created by Himan Brown that was broadcast on CBS affiliates from 1974 to 1982....
.
External links
- Tony Roberts at Internet Off-Broadway Database
- Tony Roberts - Downstage Center interview at American Theatre Wing.orgAmerican Theatre WingThe American Theatre Wing is a New York City-based organization "dedicated to supporting excellence and education in theatre," according to its mission statement...
- Tony Roberts article in The New York Observer